Jerusalem: In one of the most blacked-out stories in America right now, the US military is preparing to send thousands of US troops, along with US Naval anti-missile ships and accompanying support personnel, to Israel. It took forever to find a second source for confirmation of this story and both relatively mainstream media outlets are in Israel. With one source saying the military deployment and corresponding exercises are to occur in January, the source providing most of the details suggests it will occur later this spring.

The head of the Arab League has told reporters that the Syrian government has withdrawn its tanks and troops from cities as part of the league’s plan for peace in the country. But, according to the league, the violence continues.

Nabil al-Arabi said snipers are still present in cities and are shooting at civilians, a fact the league’s monitoring mission finds unacceptable. Talks with President Bashar al-Assad are on the observers’ agenda, but the case may not be as clear-cut as the League hopes.

As Syrian forces reportedly continue to kill civilian protesters, armed rebels have threatened to step up their own attacks. Middle East expert Dr. Jeremy Salt says there is tunnel vision when it comes to deciding just who is doing the killing.

­The commander of Syria’s armed rebels threatened to step up attacks on President Bashar al-Assad’s forces on Wednesday, according to Reuters. He said he was frustrated with Arab League monitors’ lack of progress in ending a government crackdown on protests.

In Fukushima people discuss radiation levels and how their land has become polluted with an invisible, enduring danger–and how they have become fearful as the government tries to convince them that it is now safe.

Mostafa Tamimi from Nabi Saleh, Bahjat Zaalan and his son Ramdan from Gaza died on my fiftieth birthday and just a few days after Newt Gingrich declared them an invented people. They were murdered by the Israeli terrorist organization, the IDF, an organization that is supported and funded by the US. One Israeli terrorist shot the invented Tamimi in the head with a tear gas canister, and another Israeli terrorist fired a rocket that murdered the invented Zaalan and his boy Ramadan. Both terrorists were educated and trained by Israel, and armed by the US. The Israeli terrorists are not invented but quite real, and they are safe, protected by the apartheid regime that trained and sent them on their missions, and the Israeli court system will make sure that they are never brought to justice. This is how Israel’s well-oiled ethnic cleansing machine operates.

Haniyya Meets Erdogan In Ankara IMEMC – Head of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya, visited the Turkish Parliament on Tuesday, and held a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who affirmed the Turkish support to the Palestinian cause. …

Former Detainee Dies Of Health Condition Suffered While In prison IMEMC – Zakariyya Daoud, a former Palestinian political prisoner, who got seriously ill while in Israeli prisons, and was only released on August 22, 2011, died of cancer on Monday, he was diagnosed in prison Israeli prisons and was deprived of the needed and specialized medical attention. …

Debacle! How Wars Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower By Tom Engelhardt Now, at a nadir moment in the Greater Middle East, perhaps it’s finally time to put an American face on America’s wars, to see them clearly for the imperial debacles they have been — and act accordingly. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30153.htm

OTTAWA: Canadian writer and researcher Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya said that the encirclement of Syria has long been in the works since 2001, and that permanent NATO presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Syrian Accountability Act are part of this initiative, adding that this roadmap is based on a 1996 Israeli document aimed at controlling Syria. The document’s name is ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.’

The new issue of Time magazine promises on its cover ‘Essential Info for the Year Ahead.’ One apparently essential report: U.S. drones are awesome.

The report–written by Mark Thompson, available to subscribers only explains that a ‘hot military trend’ this way:

Today’s generals and admirals want weapons that are smaller, remote-controlled and bristling with intelligence. In short, more drones that can tightly target terrorists, deliver larger payloads and are some of the best spies the U.S. has ever produced, even if they occasionally get captured in Iran or crash on landing at secret bases.